Nov 14, 2015, 07:06 PM
Hello, I am a Military Historian studying the First Great War and the Second Great War and I am currently researching a bit into the Vietnam War. I'm going to share some information I have researched recently about Verdun which took place during the First World War.
Verdun
Verdun was the longest war to take place during WWI. It was in France. On February 21, 1916, more than 1,220 guns around eight-mile perimeter opened fire. It was the sort of drenching shellstorm that would distinguish the battle. Verdun did act as a 'suction cup': three fourths of French Western Front divisions would eventually serve there. But even from the start, the 'Meuse Mill' did not achieve the five-to-two ratio Falkenhayn had predicted. The attckers soon forgot this object. Orders went out to take French positions without regard to casualties. At the end of the first week, the Germans had advanced six miles; a few men walked into an almost undefended Fort Douaumont and took possession. For the French, that marked the low point. Fighting degenerated into isolated struggles for shellholes, forcing the French into an umpromptu but successful defense-in-depth. At the beginning of June, the Germans took another key stronghold, Fort Vaux, after hideous subterranean melees. A few of their troops actually reached a point from which the twin towers of Verdun cathedral were visible, two miles away. Then, on July 14, the Germans called off their offensive. Falkenhayn was dismissed shortly after, largely for his failure at Verdun. Now it was the turn of the French. In the autumn they retook Douaumont and then Vaux. By the time their advance ground to a halt in mid-December, they were close to the line where the battle had started ten months earlier. Casualties for both sides totaled between 600,000 and 700,000 and were roughly equal. (The total casualty figure for the entire war in the Verdun sector approaches 1.25 million.) Even today the skeletons of Verdun still surface, to be added to the towering bone piles in the basement of the Douaumont ossuary.
![[Image: v2pg-22-verdun-1-gettyv2.jpg]](https://static.independent.co.uk/s3fs-public/thumbnails/image/2014/05/14/18/v2pg-22-verdun-1-gettyv2.jpg)
Verdun
Verdun was the longest war to take place during WWI. It was in France. On February 21, 1916, more than 1,220 guns around eight-mile perimeter opened fire. It was the sort of drenching shellstorm that would distinguish the battle. Verdun did act as a 'suction cup': three fourths of French Western Front divisions would eventually serve there. But even from the start, the 'Meuse Mill' did not achieve the five-to-two ratio Falkenhayn had predicted. The attckers soon forgot this object. Orders went out to take French positions without regard to casualties. At the end of the first week, the Germans had advanced six miles; a few men walked into an almost undefended Fort Douaumont and took possession. For the French, that marked the low point. Fighting degenerated into isolated struggles for shellholes, forcing the French into an umpromptu but successful defense-in-depth. At the beginning of June, the Germans took another key stronghold, Fort Vaux, after hideous subterranean melees. A few of their troops actually reached a point from which the twin towers of Verdun cathedral were visible, two miles away. Then, on July 14, the Germans called off their offensive. Falkenhayn was dismissed shortly after, largely for his failure at Verdun. Now it was the turn of the French. In the autumn they retook Douaumont and then Vaux. By the time their advance ground to a halt in mid-December, they were close to the line where the battle had started ten months earlier. Casualties for both sides totaled between 600,000 and 700,000 and were roughly equal. (The total casualty figure for the entire war in the Verdun sector approaches 1.25 million.) Even today the skeletons of Verdun still surface, to be added to the towering bone piles in the basement of the Douaumont ossuary.